


a woman's worth

by youngerdrgrey



Category: Queen Sugar (TV)
Genre: 30 x 31 Writing Challenge, Future Fic, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 01:31:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9525734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/youngerdrgrey/pseuds/youngerdrgrey
Summary: Back in that recording of Davis and Goldie's phone call, Davis had said, “I pay you to do the stuff my wife won’t do.” Well, Charley wants to know what that stuff is.





	

**Author's Note:**

> **written for** day 20 of 30 x 31 writing challenge; **prompt:** song lyric as title.
> 
> .  
>  title from Alicia Keys' "A Woman's Worth"

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.

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Charley stops walking with her hand wrapped around the side of the door. Wood slivers push back against her hands like they're screaming, begging for her to just keep moving. Let go, follow Micah, and leave before Davis finds a way to make this day even worse. He's already sucked an hour out of her day. Technically, he and Micah did -- the third of their newly reinstated father-son meetings, and Micah had asked Charley to just wait at the hotel this time instead of leaving. So she'd spent an hour down at the hotel bar, tracing condensation down a glass of Remy Martin and wondering how the humor only made her stomach drop lower.

Remy Newell adores her. Cherishes her mind, her drive, her ability to connect to people from different upbringings and rally them together towards a new hope for the future. And he looks damn good doing it too. But he's also the first man to look at her this way since Davis. The first man to make her smile, to get her blood pumping and have her reaching to turn her whole world on silent. But sometimes, for just a second, her phone buzzes, and she sees Davis' face first. Or she blinks awake in her room at Aunt Vi's and rolls over, expecting her husband to still be there beside her. She just finds air and disappointment. A deep seated hollow feeling that doesn't go away no matter how hard she breathes or how she scrapes her nails against her ribcage.

And she figures that she could let Davis go if she understood just one thing. And it's not why he cheated, because that's something he'll have to work out between himself and the God he sometimes believes in. But her question is a subset of _why_ , even if it's more of a _what_.

Micah stills in the hall about two doors down from the penthouse. He watches her like he always does, like he sees everything but only understands the smallest bit. Like if he knits his eyebrows together, everything about her will suddenly make sense. But she rarely has a good explanation for herself. Rarely entertains anyone who'd ask for one.

"Mom?"

What do he and Davis talk about when they're alone? Do they talk at all, or do they just sit for an hour until she comes to get him? Is it like old times where they play games, or maybe they just turn on the tv and pretend they're not together at all. She could ask about that. But for now, she has another question.

Charley talks around a quivering jaw with a newfound set to her shoulders. "Give us a second."

Micah takes a step her way before he catches himself. Then he kind of bounces in his words, his choice to stay.

“I’ll be right here. I’ve got my phone so…” take her time, say what she needs to say. “I’ll be here.”

She nods her thanks, then taps along the door and pulls it back closed. She doesn’t have to turn to know Davis has come closer to her. He’d stayed near the chair once she came up to get Micah, but now he’s less than an arm’s reach away. His shadow looms over her as she does come to face him.

Davis holds his hope in the tops of his cheeks, and they rise to greet her as quickly as his hands do. He brings the hands back down, but his face keeps that light. It'd always made him seem even taller -- his light -- like he could reach up into the heavens and bring down the moon and every star in the sky for her.

"Hey, Charley," he says, as if they haven't already exchanged greetings, as if this extra moment between them is normal. She could pretend it is. Could let herself give in to the old memories and the warmth that used to wash over her at the sound of her name. He sang her name like a hymn, brushed his thumb from her nose to her lips, and left her adrift. She's coming back to herself now. She's trying to.

"I'm sorry." She blinks. Sighs. "Actually, I'm not sorry. I'm..." frustrated. Ridiculous. Her fists ball at her sides before she unclenches them. "I don't even know if I want the answer, but I have to ask. I need to know so that I can stop thinking about this every time I try to relax and wind up picturing you instead."

His cheeks deflate the longer she talks. Grounding out into their spaces on his bones. She's practiced this a hundred times over. Brushing her teeth, putting in her contacts, sitting in traffic, signing paperwork. But the lead in isn't exactly something that she can be prepared for.

She dives in anyway. "In that recording, of you and-- you said, 'I pay you to do the things my wife won't do.'"

Now he's the one who's hollow. Ghosted down cheeks and a chest full of hot air. "Charley--"

"What kinds of things?" she asks him.

"Baby, don't--"

She stresses every syllable. "What kind of things, Davis?" She wrestles with his gaze even as he tries to look away from her. "You owe me that."

"You don't want to know," he says. "You're asking, but you said it yourself. You don't--"

"What?" She takes a step in. "Don't _what_?"

He talks real slow after that. "Want to know, Charley. God, what's that supposed to help anyway? You want to hear positions. Places. How many times. None of that's going to help you."

"You have no idea what will help me." She has no idea what will help her.

"I'm looking out for you."

She scoffs. "You're protecting yourself. The same thing you did when you took up mistresses and sex workers instead of just communicating what you needed with me. That's what I'm here for! To be there for you. To love you and support you and get the exact same in return. Not just to fix your brand and raise your son."

He huffs at that. "I raised Micah. I was there every moment that I could be for that boy.."

"Really?" She crosses her arms. "How many times did you call him and say goodnight while a woman made her way over to your room? How many of those hurried phone calls were just to ease your guilt? And how many of those missed calls were because you were otherwise occupied, huh?"

"Charley, we agreed that none of this changes what I am to Micah. This was never about him."

"Oh, I know that. It was about you. Nothing but you." Some need to fulfill himself outside of his marriage. He was sitting there with those boys, fresh out the draft and eyes so wide they don't know what to do but look at what's out there, and he'd felt like he was missing something. Like maybe if he got to run around and be a man somewhere, he could keep on playing like them. If he could act like them, then he wasn't getting old, just getting better. She knew the psychology. Knew the stories of the men who'd wanted a break from responsibilities and took so much more from everyone else around them.

He groans. Spins with the weight of his frustration and stomps those steps back to the chair. She gives him that space, watches as he grinds his jaw.

He says, "The first time it happened, I was so scared you would find out. I couldn't stop checking for some kind of sign that you knew, that you even suspected it. But you had no idea, did you?" He grips the chair. "Out there taking care of Blue and your aunt Vi -- didn't even know what I was up to. And it felt good, Charley, to have someone just care about me. Not about the ball player, or the business man--" she scoffs, and he tenses. Grinds out, "Someone who didn't care about the husband, or the father-- don't give me that look."

"You said it didn't change how you were to Micah, now you're saying you wanted to forget about him."

"I wanted a night off."

"And I didn't?" She could shake him. "You don't think I ever wanted a break from being everything? I was the wife, the mom, the manager, the CEO, the picture perfect black princess for everyone out there who needed someone to look up to. I didn't get breaks, Davis."

"I get that."

"Do you?"

"Yes! I'll admit it. I'm not as strong as you. I couldn't be. You could be all of that, baby, and not even break a sweat. But I wanted something--"

"More?" He wanted curves and big breasts. Multiple women who'd let him take the reigns and say shit like _unless I put something in it, shut your mouth._  That wasn't her.

He knows that much. His voice comes out softer. "Else, Charley. Never more." He squeezes the chair again before letting it go. "Look, I don't have any answers for you. And I'm sorry. For hurting you, for putting you through this, for not being able to actually make any of this better. Because that's what I was there for. To take some of that weight you carry and let you keep on moving." From a distance, their eyes come out almost level. "I couldn't be enough for you. At least now you know it, right?"

She doesn't know what she knows. But she starts seeing a movie play out in front of her. Back in the day, before Micah'd been born but around the time when all the doubts and fears started creeping in, they'd gone on a date to the movies. He'd had to help lower her into her seat, but he hadn't complained once, not when she wanted half the concessions stand, or when she'd whined about the studying she should've been doing. He'd just got her what she needed and pulled her close for what would eventually be his favorite movie.

"'All's fair in love and basketball.'" Her eyes well up, and her jaw ticks so she has to work extra hard to keep herself from losing it. On the date, and for years, they'd joked that he was like Quincy, the boy who'd spent his whole life wanting to be in the game, but that he would make it. Turns out her husband -- ex husband -- is more like Quincy's dad, Zeke. So caught up in his own shortcomings that he destroys his family, hurts his son, and loses everything.

Davis's eyes go wide, but she doesn't take the time to explain or recap. She takes a breath to steel herself and nods.

"Goodbye, Davis." Quincy got a happy ending, even though it wasn't the story he'd been hoping for. Zeke got a passing mention about a funeral, and even that was a little more than he deserved.

Charley heads back out without another look his way. She clicks the door shut behind her.

Micah's where she left him, but he's typing, furiously. Probably texting Keke, or Nova if he's telling on her. He jumps at the sound of the door though. Steps her way, hesitates, then keeps on going. She sidesteps the hug, but wraps her arm around his shoulder. It's enough for now. She can carry a bit of this weight if she has someone to lean on. And she will always have her son.

She presses a kiss to the side of his head. He groans, but his heart's not in it.

She says to Micah, "You are more than enough, you know that, right?"

And Micah says, "I know. Love you too, Mom."

 

 

 

(She never does get an answer. But it might've just been the why she cared about after all.)

/

/

**Author's Note:**

> I'm still unsure about how I feel about this, so what do y'all think?


End file.
